At today's ski resorts, with increased skier traffic, snow making and snow grooming has become an essential part of any successful ski centre. Tracked vehicles are usually the power source and these are equipped with a number of attachments or devices to help in the snow grooming process Generally, a tracked vehicle has an inverted V-shaped plow on the front which collects snow from areas where there is too much and moves it to areas which are worn The tracked vehicle generally has a tiller attached to the rear. The tiller consists of a drum with a number of cutting projection on it. The drum with the cutting projections rotates within a housing and breaks up ice chunks or other undesirable types of snow.
The tiller is usually equipped with a snow chamber immediately behind the revolving drum which collects the snow so that it can be worked by the drum. At the rear of the tiller is a flexible mat equipped with a number of grooved finishing elements The finishing elements smooth out the snow into a reasonable skiing surface.
In the present art the tillers have a rigid housing or cover over the snow chamber. The cover is located between the flexible finishing membrane and the cutting drum housing.
It has been found, however, that because of differing snow conditions, present day tillers suffer serious disadvantages. For example, when the snow is extremely icy it is maintained and worked in the snow chamber for the same amount of time as when the snow is particularly soft. As a result, the finished surface which is left once the tiller passes over is not consistent.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved tiller wherein the length of time that the snow is worked and retained in the snow chamber can be varied according to snow conditions.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a device which is inexpensive and easy to make whereby the snow chamber can be enlarged or reduced quickly and effortlessly by the operator of the power source as conditions change across any given ski slope on any given day.